


let's make a toast to the damned

by sbrn10



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Dead Like Me AU, F/F, Gen, as in it is supercorp if you squint, as it is a dead like me au the major character death warning is real but also debatably so, because basically everything i write is only supercorp if you squint, but i live my entire life squinting - i am nearsighted and have tunnel vision, the supercorp tag is also real but debatably so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26472112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbrn10/pseuds/sbrn10
Summary: The day after Lena's funeral, Grace pushes a post-it towards Lena across the table and Lena recoils.“Jeez, Grace, she's been dead for like three days. Cut her some slack,” you  say around a mouth full of waffle, but Grace just waves you off and pushes the post-it closer to Lena pointedly.“I'm sorry, do any of the dozens of dead people we need to get to today look like they care? I'm only giving you one because it's your first day on the job. You're a reaper; you reap. Them's the breaks, kid.”“I don't want to kill anyone.”“You're not. They're gonna die anyway. It's fate, or whatever. You're just making sure they can move on to the next place.”---Lena dies, but doesn’t get to move on. Sam helps her along the way.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias & Lena Luthor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 55





	let's make a toast to the damned

“Olivia just crossed over. Her assignment is due in seven minutes.”

You get the call from Grace one morning and swear, loudly, in the middle of the coffee shop.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

“It's like five minutes away from you, Sam; I need you to cover.”

“I have my own fucking assignment, Grace!” you protest, but Grace already hung up. You jab at the screen angrily (which is not as satisfying as hanging up a real phone or even snapping a flip phone shut—modern technology can _suck it)_ and cut in front of a douchebag in a suit to grab a coffee, middle finger raised at him casually behind you as you leave. You _literally_ have more important things to do.

* * *

You've seen a lot of death in your time, and as deaths go, this one isn't too terrible, actually. Shot through the heart. Clean. Relatively quick. Not much damage to the body. There are so many more fucked up ways to die, as you intimately know.

But the clinical one-word note that you add to the shared calendar appointment ( _9:43 a.m., L-Corp HQ, L. Luthor_ accented in hot pink for Grace Parker, next to _gunshot_ in your green) is of course necessarily and yet ludicrously insufficient to describe what happened—doesn't account for the blur that arrives seconds too late, for the bright red splashed across pale skin and dark blue fabric where a woman in a cape clutches at a wound like strength alone will hold it closed, for the panicked stream of pleas whispered against a deaf ear, “Lena, Lena, stay with me, I've got you, okay? Just please, hang on.” You wince uncomfortably, shove your phone and your hands in your pockets as you look just enough away that the blonde head bent over a bloody body is only in the corner of your vision.

Lena, for her part, is just standing there, stricken, mouth open like she wants to call to her friend but can't find her voice or the right words.

“She can't hear you,” you say to her, softly, because your voice does exist in the physical world—although the woman kneeling ten feet away from you is likely dead to it right now.

Lena turns and looks at you, still mute.

“You're, you know. Dead,” you continue, gesturing super helpfully to her still body. “I was giving you a moment but, uh, it's actually usually easier if you don't watch the immediate aftermath, so...” You jerk your thumb over your shoulder to indicate that it would really be much less awkward for everybody involved (well, primarily you, but also Lena, whose shell-shocked eyes are gleaming too brightly now) to _leave_.

“Supergirl! Ma'am, you can't be here, please stand back.”

With only that very distracted warning, a woman in black tactical gear runs right by you, right _through_ Lena's metaphysical existence on this plane, and Lena gasps, the first sound she's made since she died, as if finally acknowledging the reality of it all.

“Come on.” You hover your hand over her arm even though you wouldn't be able to touch—it's still a reminder that you see her. She looks at your hand anyway, as if she thinks she can feel it, then back at you, and lurches forward.

* * *

You know _of_ Lena Luthor, of course. It’s kind of hard not to, between her crazy family members making headlines half the time and her company doing the same the other half.

You know, in broad strokes, how she died—shot by a man hired by her brother, sitting in a prison cell, serving a sentence that can't get any longer than life. It's kind of ironic, that even now he still has his, and Lena doesn't, but you've learned to stop questioning that kind of thing.

You know that she takes her death remarkably in stride, skipping straight past denial through bargaining to settle in what seems like mild depression. When you tell her so, she laughs, and you have never heard a less happy sound. “Well, it's not the first time Lex tried to kill me. Given enough tries, it's not surprising he succeeded.” She wraps her arms around herself, fingers splayed across the bare skin of her arms. As last outfits go, hers was a nice one—black, sleeveless, boardroom appropriate. It'd be a nice one to cross over in—although that's not on the table for her.

You know that when you explain that you and Olivia are—or were, in Olivia's case—grim reapers, and Lena was Olivia's last soul, so now Lena will be taking her place, she frowns and asks, “So what does that mean? I'm not... going anywhere else? I'm still going to be here? In this world?” and you can hear the heartbreaking hope straining her voice even though her face betrays none of it. You have to nip this shit in the bud.

“Technically, yes. It's called being undead. But you have to understand that you're not going to live as Lena Luthor. Obviously, Lena Luthor is dead. If you just came back, people would start a religion or something. Once you get your corporeal form back, mortals won't recognize you as you. They'll see someone else. Just... a reaper. Like me.”

You shrug.

Lena's jaw clenches then unclenches several times like she's doing it consciously.

You think about how you never knew, living in National City and constantly bombarded by Supergirl-related news, that Lena Luthor was someone whose death would break Supergirl open like that, in broad daylight. Sure, you knew they worked together then and again, probably kept a hell of a workload off your plate, but that's not...

Oh well. It doesn't matter now, does it, what you do or don't or didn't know about her. Lena Luthor is dead.

* * *

Grace and Julia are already sitting in the usual booth at the waffle house that evening when you show up with Lena in tow, newly returned to the physical realm, although it's still a bit touch and go sometimes, like when she tries to pick up a fork and it slips through her fingers. (To be fair, that might not be a corporeal form thing so much as a _Lena is too busy regarding all three of you warily_ thing.)

“Can't believe Olivia got her lights. It's only been, what, forty years?” Julia says, and you shrug half-heartedly, shaking your head.

“She was always lucky.” Lena looks completely lost, though, so you add for her benefit, “It means Olivia crossed over. To wherever it is that dead people go. So, like, really died.”

“...is that a good thing?” Lena asks.

Julia shrugs. “It's a new thing. Being undead for decades can get pretty old.”

“Speak for yourself,” Grace retorts, eyeing Lena like a cat watches a plaything. Grace has been a doctor for-fucking-ever, surrounded by death every single day, but she's still here, and Olivia, who died only a few years before you, isn't. Grace is harder to read than most and you can't tell if she's _unhappy,_ exactly, but anyway, unlife isn't any fairer than life, that's for sure.

* * *

You break it to Lena that being undead still means having to eat and sleep, preferably with a roof over your head, and she isn't rich anymore, so she can stay with you but only until she can get a job—and that it might be more difficult than one would at first imagine, what with having no documentable identity and the perks that come with, like, say, a credit score or a high school diploma. You think you're being exceptionally generous, really, but she just looks at you, unimpressed, and takes about half an hour in front your computer to produce a false identity and more money than you have ever had in your nearly one hundred years alive or undead on this earth from some apparently legally gray and barely traceable slush fund.

You blink. “Sounds fake.”

“The concept of currency often does,” she says drily and you blink again, twice.

“...was that a joke?” The small lift at the corners of her mouth is the first smile you've ever seen on her face—well, in person, at least. “Sounds even faker!”

“Well, tell no one, or I'll have to kill you,” she says lightly, before startling as if she only just remembered. The momentarily bright mood dissipates instantly, and Lena clears her throat as she hunkers down, slipping into defensiveness like a well-worn shoe. “It's not my fault you have so little faith in everything.”

You laugh lightly, even if it's forced, and squint at the computer screen again, brows furrowed in exaggeration as you try to frown. “Christ, what is this, a fucking cheat code? I can't believe I need a job when some people just spin money out of thin air. Pretty sure you owe me at least some of it, seeing as you used my computer. That's how capitalism works, right?”

Lena rolls her eyes and never moves out of your living room anyway. She could get a better place for the “rent” she's paying you, but she doesn't, and you're not quite sure what it means, but you find that you don't mind, not really.

* * *

There are articles about Lena's death—about what happens now, where the money goes, who runs the company, how it will affect the industry, how her brother and mother, the only remaining Luthors, are in prison and won't be able to attend any funeral. None about the small group of people huddled around a hole in a cemetery, and of course none about Lena, hiding behind three rows of headstones and sunglasses and a too-large hat, even though she knows (or maybe because she does) that if she stood before them in broad daylight she would only be seen as a stranger.

In movies, you figure it would be raining or overcast for a scene like this, but in real life, it's just another National City day—dry, hot, and blinding.

“It's a little funny, I guess,” Lena says slowly, like she's second-guessing each word, eyes fixed firmly ahead without so much as a glance your way. “I changed my will out of spite, just to tell the world that I don't want to rest with all the other Luthors, but now that we're here, I'm not sure whether my mother is rolling over in her metaphorical grave over the embarrassment of having a Luthor in a public cemetery or glad that I'm not in that mausoleum since I never belonged anyway.”

That's... a lot. You just look at her, brows drawn in utter don't-know-how-to-respond, and she shrugs without turning towards you.

“Sorry. But it's my funeral; I'm allowed my own eulogy, aren't I? _Lena Luthor: she and her family disowned each other._ ” It's said drily, just a hint of humor in the minute curve of her lips, but her arms are wrapped around herself like physical restraints, fingers digging jagged creases in her sleeves, unmoving gaze full of undisguised hunger even behind her sunglasses, and your first thought is that it's really not funny at all.

You turn to look at the funeral guests again, who are just far enough that they pay you no mind but not far enough that you can't see the gleam of tear tracks on a few faces, the grief furrowed on others attempting to be more stoic. They take turns scattering dirt over the coffin. A blonde woman in glasses passes the shovel to the tallest man with the broadest shoulders, and he falters as if it were made of pure lead. When the woman puts a hand on his arm for a moment, they both seem to draw strength, however briefly.

Finally, you break the silence. “You could say goodbye to them, if you want. Like, not as… you. But.” She doesn't answer, so you say again, “It's more than most people get.”

Lena shakes her head then, and says simply, “No.”

You frown. You've known more than a few reapers who tried to skirt the rules, tried to clutch at their old lives until their greed left them nothing of it, and you wouldn't have pegged Lena Luthor as the kind of person who knows how to let things go without a fight.

As if sensing your misgivings, Lena says, “I've never been able to do things in moderation,” and it makes you sigh in recognition.

You guess she's right, actually; it is a little funny. There are no articles about her, not really. Or her family.

* * *

The day after Lena's funeral, Grace pushes a post-it ( _B. Lockwood, City Center, 10:21 a.m._ ) towards Lena across the table and Lena recoils.

“I thought you were a tech wunderkind or something; why do you still not have a phone?” is Grace's unhelpful opener, and Lena just looks at her with a sullen sort of resentment that makes her look more her age than you have ever thought of her, both before and after death. “Get one. I'm giving you one,” and Grace raises one finger just to be the dramatic asshole she is, “post-it as a courtesy.”

“Jeez, Grace, she's been dead for like three days. Cut her some slack,” you say around a mouth full of waffle, but Grace just waves you off and pushes the post-it closer to Lena pointedly.

“I'm sorry, do any of the dozens of dead people we need to get to today look like they care? I'm only giving you one because it's your first day on the job. You're a reaper; you reap. Them's the breaks, kid.”

“I don't want to kill anyone,” Lena says, looking at the post-it down the line of her nose in ill-hidden distaste.

“You're not. They're gonna die anyway. It's fate, or whatever. You're just making sure they can move on to the next place.”

Lena's mouth sets in a grim frown, clearly unconvinced, and Grace sighs, flapping a hand towards you. “Shotgun, Arias.”

It's all pretty standard for new reapers (and it's honestly more disturbing when they take to the job like a duck to water, like Selena, who disappeared one day and you don't want to know to where), so you shrug on your jacket and grab Lena's arm. “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.”

* * *

“I'm just saying, it's not killing. I mean, if you think about it, it's almost the _opposite_ of killing. You pop a soul out, you’re _keeping_ them from experiencing horrible, tragic death. Like, you, as in your soul, didn’t have to actually bleed out all over Harbor Green Plaza, and that’s a _good_ thing.”

The cashier at T-Mobile is a floppy-haired boy who only gives you a very confused look while scanning the pre-paid phone Lena threw on the counter.

“Tabletop lore stuff,” you say off-handedly, and his face clears into a smile.

“Very cool! What game?”

Lena cuts him off, stony-faced, by handing him cash in hundreds and ignoring the flustered way he squints at them like he's trying to recall a manual about checking for counterfeits.

“Look, you just have to roll with the punches,” you continue later, as you're walking out of the store while Lena pointedly ignores you in favor of setting up her phone, never mind that the pointedness itself undermines the pretense. “We went to your funeral; you know this is all real, right? Like, look.”

You grab the phone out of her hands without warning and raise it for a selfie. It comes out terribly—you were looking at the screen instead of the camera and are caught a bit cross-eyed; Lena is startled, bordering on outraged, and slightly blurry where she stands by you in the middle of the street. But it's still a concrete image of the two of you, looking entirely different from how you see yourselves. Lena is still vaguely pretty, but in a forgettable sort of way, which is not how anyone has ever described Lena Luthor. You're mostly just tall and thin and absolutely not hot enough compared to your real self, but then, reapers are supposed to be nondescript.

“That's what everyone else sees. That's us. We're here because, I don't know, the universe pulled some kind of cosmic joke on us, I guess. But we're here. And we know what we're here to do, which is more than most people can say, you know?”

Lena just takes the phone from you and stares at the screen, fingers tracing the stranger's face she wears.

“It's a lot. But, well. It always is.” You put an arm around her and point at the man standing at the bus stop across the street, identity made clear by the logo across the briefcase slung on his shoulder— _Lockwood Steel_. It's 10:14 and he checks his watch like he's late for a meeting that he has no idea he's never going to make.

“...I still don't like it,” is all that Lena finally says.

“None of us do, but like Grace said. We don't make the rules.” You nudge Lena towards him. “Just, you know, bump into him, say he dropped something, whatever. You just need five seconds worth of an excuse to touch his hand, that's all.”

Lena sighs for a long moment, before drawing herself up with a deep breath, shoulders squared.

Olivia gave you your little pep talk on your first job, and now here you are, watching Lena Luthor about to bag her first reap. Maybe it's beautiful, the passing of the torch or whatever. Or maybe not, but the torch gets passed just the same, so you might as well believe that it is.

Lena stumbles into the man from behind and his eyes go wide when he sees her. He laughs off her awkward apology and tries some sort of cheesy line about how he's lucky she ran into him _(his name is Ben, by the way)_ and Lena looks even more miserable. But she grabs his hand lightly as she answers, “I'm, um. Tess,” and manages a pained smile.

* * *

B. Lockwood (Ben, by the way) dies getting run over by an armored car that squeals around the corner, skids, then topples over and screeches onto the sidewalk. Supergirl is there just fast enough to stop it before it crashes into the cafe on the first floor of the nearest building, but not fast enough to save Ben.

Sirens sound in the distance as Supergirl lets go of the car and takes a few halting steps towards Ben's body before kneeling down to touch his arm gently, long hair curtaining her face. But it's not like you need to see her face to read the ill-advised guilt wrapped around her tighter than her cape. You sigh and think that maybe you liked it better when you never stuck around long enough to notice these sorts of things because your coworker slash sort of roommate hadn’t died in Supergirl’s arms, but, hey, there's no going back now.

 _Holy shit, did you see that?_ comes from behind you somewhere, where a mostly quiet but discomforted crowd has started to gather. Someone shoves you a bit to the left to get closer and passes through Ben.

“Holy shit,” he says, looking down at his hands and then at the body lying twenty feet away.

“Pearly gates, dude. Right there.” You point at the soft, shimmering rift in reality, his portal to the next life, which just looks like a door and nothing more. Ben's not particularly inventive. Just from his face, you would’ve pegged him as a sailing away on a luxury yacht kind of dude, but you can never tell from just their faces, can you?

“Am I...? Are you...?” He looks at you, then at Lena, even though Lena hasn't looked away from Supergirl since she arrived on the scene. “You're here for me?”

“This isn't _Touched by an Angel;_ we're not having a heartfelt talk about your life, alright? Congratulations, you're dead, move on.”

The (living) man that just pushed past you looks back, clearly disturbed by the one-sided conversation he's hearing, and you just smile at him.

Ben does move on after a few more glares from you, which is more than you can say about Lena, who just stands there like she did in the cemetery, all bridled tension straining her at the joints.

“Fuck,” she whispers as Supergirl flies away before any reporters can grab her, “am I going to keep running into her?”

“Collateral damage does sort of come with the superhero territory.”

“...I don't think I can do this.”

You put a hand on her shoulder and tug her away from her first reap. “Nobody said it's easy, kid. But you've got the rest of your unlife to figure out how.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Death Stranding by CHVRCHES.
> 
> Started writing this mid s4-ish, as is probably obvious from the references to Lex being in prison. Having poked at it indecisively for ages, I have decided to let it go (Lena can't relate).


End file.
